WC: Team Finland

[FiLe]

But who is playing middle? they're all wingers nowaday

Aho, if these three are in the same line.

Im sure Marjamäki will spread talent, after all it's only way to be effective in short tournament like this

I hope you're right, at least to a degree.

The Carolina duo will be linemates, that goes without question. But the two key questions that determine where MiG goes, are: Who will complement the top line if not him? And who will be good enough linemates to MiG so he doesn't go to waste? After all, spreading the talent only works as long as there's at least some secondary talent in the lineup behind the top dogs.

The best way to solve these issues would be to get Rantanen, so fingers crossed. He'd be the obvious piece to complement the Carolina duo. As for MiG... well, if you have four top dogs, question number two kinda becomes moot. One will have to be the odd man out, no matter what, even if it's not the ideal situation from that player's perspective.

 

[BB88]

best lines right now:

Teräväinen - Aho - Granlund
Savinainen - Suomela - Palola
Enlund - Niemi - Jormakka
Puustinen - Sandell - Anttila

Heiskanen - Honka
Juolevi - Pokka
Näkyvä - Kivistö

Goalies bla bla.

This is not enough. At best a 4th place for this team.

I would have like said before Granlund drive his own line, that's an easy team to shutdown by quality teams.

 

[FiLe]

Are possibly players from Kärpät Oulu and Tappara Tampere joining the team or are there no players who could strenghten the team with their skills I mean good enough for the NT at WHC?

There are quite a bit. Lehtonen, Koivisto and Kukkonen for the defense at least. As for forwards, I'd say Peltola, Junttila and Haapala. Plus Kuusela and Vesalainen could have some kind of odds too.

 

[Loffer]

In principle, I don't like the idea of having Granlund, Aho and Teräväinen in the same line. As player types, they're too similar. That's why I'm hoping Rantanen joins. He'd be a much more fitting complementary piece to the Carolina duo.

However, if Granlund is our final addition... then Marjamäki has little choice. He has to put all his eggs in the same basket and see if MiG-Aho-TT is an unit that somehow clicks. At least to begin with.

We can then only hope this trio will has its chance. "Somehow clicks" - hahah, you have an inner comedian in you, Mr. FiLe.

 

[Mestaruus]

Great news about Granny. Hoping for Nutty and Rants now.

About the who are our top-6 centers topic. I'd really prefer to find a way to keep all 4 of our high caliber players as wingers if possible (assuming that Rantanen comes). If I'm not mistaken, Teräväinen has played most center of these players this season? He would be the first guy I'd consider moving to center if he really played most center this season.

I wish Koskiranta or someone would appear out of nowhere to help in this center situation or some of Koivu, Filppula, Lehterä. I know about Filppula's and Lehterä's contract situations but still. Even Jarkko Immonen would be god sent now.

Teräväinen-X-Aho (Plan B: X-Teuvo-Aho)
Granlund-X-Rantanen

There are quite a bit. Lehtonen, Koivisto and Kukkonen for the defense at least. As for forwards, I'd say Peltola, Junttila and Haapala. Plus Kuusela and Vesalainen could have some kind of odds too.

I want both of the captains from the finals as well and today made that even more clear in my mind.

 

[BennsGonnaGetYou]

Touché Loffer.

 

[FiLe]

About the who are our top-6 centers topic. I'd really prefer to find a way to keep all 4 of our high caliber players as wingers if possible assuming that Rantanen comes. If I'm not mistaken, Teräväinen has played most center of these players this season? He would be the first guy I'd consider moving to center if that was indeed the case.

Actually, it's been Aho. For the most season, the duo was wingers to either Staal or Lindholm, but when they were in a line without either, it was Seb who would move down the middle. And that's why I'd be wholly comfortable with him as our nominal 1C, especially with TT complementing him.

I wish Koskiranta or someone would appear out of nowhere to help in this center situation or some of Koivu, Filppula, Lehterä. I know about Filppula's and Lehterä's contract situations but still. Even Jarkko Immonen would be god sent now.

We can forget about Filppula, he has already declined. But Lehterä has no contract issues, he's got a year left.

Some speculation follows...

If we get Lehterä AND Koivu, building the top-six becomes kinda trivial. It should be:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
X - Koivu - Granlund

Plenty of options for X. I'd personally use Pesonen. He has played with Granny before.
EDIT: I mean in the absence of Rantanen, naturally.


If we get Lehterä but no Koivu, then:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Suomela is good enough to be 2C, if absolutely no other options pop up.


If we get Koivu but no Lehterä:

X - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Koivu - Granlund

Rantanen for X would still be the no-brainer. But in case we don't get him, hmm... I'd use Peltola.


No Koivu, no Lehterä:

Peltola - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Of course, this is the likely scenario where Marjamäki will be tempted to just put Granny with the Carolina boys, but I am kinda hoping he'd try this instead. Let's keep in mind that in 2016, K.Jalonen put together a line of Aho - Koivu - Granlund, and that didn't work at all. So I have valid reason to merely "hope" TT - Aho - MiG would click, instead of being certain of it. Three playmakers in one unit is never ideal. Two can work just fine, but then you need some kind of power forward or a sniper complementing them.

In the case Rants is a no-show, one outside option would be to make do early with some kind of substitute and wait calmly until Preds - Jets is over. No matter the outcome, it could bring the possible relief - either Eeli or... Big Bad Pate. Even though I don't really dare dream of the latter. He could be pretty gassed by then.

 

[Mestaruus]

Actually, it's been Aho. For the most season, the duo was wingers to either Staal or Lindholm, but when they were in a line without either, it was Seb who would move down the middle. And that's why I'd be wholly comfortable with him as our nominal 1C, especially with TT complementing him.

I'll go with that as well then. Just a matter of who can get used to it with least amount of adjustment time needed and to get the maximum out of their potential and not sacrifice anyone to a too defensive role. However plan A for me is to have them both as wingers in that line. Say we'd get Donskoi from NHL's 2nd round, at this point I'd probably latest move Aho to center and smash all the high caliber NHL forwards to top-6 together.

 

[Mestaruus]

If we get Lehterä AND Koivu, building the top-six becomes kinda trivial. It should be:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
X - Koivu - Granlund

Plenty of options for X. I'd personally use Pesonen. He has played with Granny before.


If we get Lehterä but no Koivu, then:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Suomela is good enough to be 2C, if absolutely no other options pop up.


If we get Koivu but no Lehterä:

X - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Koivu - Granlund

Rantanen for X would still be the no-brainer. But in case we don't get him, hmm... I'd use Peltola.


No Koivu, no Lehterä:

Peltola - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Of course, this is the likely scenario where Marjamäki will be tempted to just put Granny with the Carolina boys, but I am kinda hoping he'd try this instead. Let's keep in mind that in 2016, K.Jalonen put together a line of Aho - Koivu - Granlund, and that didn't work at all. So I have valid reason to merely "hope" TT - Aho - MiG would click, instead of being certain of it. Three playmakers in one unit is never ideal. Two can work just fine, but then you need some kind of power forward or a sniper complementing them.

In the case Rants is a no-show, one outside option would be to make do early with some kind of substitute and wait calmly until Preds - Jets is over. No matter the outcome, it could bring the possible relief - either Eeli or... Big Bad Pate. Even though I don't really dare dream of the latter. He could be pretty gassed by then.

I pretty much agree. Peltola-Aho-Terväväinen isn't a bad suggestion as Peltola would take a more defensive role and let Aho and Teuvo maximize their offense.

It's a shame that Koivu would be a pretty good replicate for Jordan Staal, but there's no way in hell I'd separate Koivu from Granny.

Suomela is probably the one for #2 center indeed in the case of declines. I like it.

 

[Loffer]

Entertainment (expectation) value of the line Granny - Aho - TT is just too high to be missed. And hockey is well entertainment, at least this tournament is first and foremost entertainment.

Besides this line would be a PP magnet drawing penalties to the oppositions left and right. Other lines can do their basic bread and butter job which is grinding and secondary scoring. This line will not provide the bread but circus entertainment and power play chances.

I call this a strategic choice along the basic principles of The Art of War, not "putting all the eggs in the same basket". It is a move based on the fact that 90 % if not more of oppositions won't match this combination in this competition skill, vision or cunning wise which will give Finland best chances to win the games by scoring on PP if the line doesn't score by themselves even strength before that.

Simple number game making the best of the strength of the team and relative weakness of the other teams.

 

[Mestaruus]

^
I'd spread the talent more. Savinainen should probably be in top-6 if Aho is a center. He really doesn't mind going to the net and taking some hits. Watching Savinainen in front of the net is already circus entertainment at it's best.

 

[b0rn2beWild]

I think there's bigger chance to get Lehterä than Koivu. Bit weird that they were not announced atonce (same time with Granlud) if Koivu will come also.

Secondly, Lehterä played quite a small role this season. There's good opportunity to play big role with MG in worlds so hopefully he joins the team... His vision and passing play always emerges on the bigger ice surface.

Top 6 could look like:
Teräväinen-Aho-Rantanen
Haapala/Pesonen-Lehterä-Granlund

Another problem is a lack of right-handed guns on the PP. There's only muffin shooters on the blueline also, if Vatanen isn't available...
Maybe Pulkkinen will be invited. Chicago Wolves is 0-2 down in the AHL playoffs - first round series.

 

[Mestaruus]

I think there's bigger chance to get Lehterä than Koivu. Bit weird that they were not announced atonce (same time with Granlud) if Koivu will come also.

They just did that today and yesterday with Kiiskinen and Janne Pesonen who are teammates in Vaxjö where they didn't announce them joining the camp at the same time. They are not NHL guys but kind of similar thing so I wouldn't be surprised if Koivu joining gets announced a bit later. I don't blame Koivu at all if he skips this one as he has done so much for the NT already. We do have a crying need for a center like Koivu though to make this team legit.

 

[FiLe]

I'll go with that as well then. Just a matter of who can get used to it with least amount of adjustment time needed and to get the maximum out of their potential and not sacrifice anyone to a too defensive role. However plan A for me is to have them both as wingers in that line. Say we'd get Donskoi from NHL's 2nd round, at this point I'd probably latest move Aho to center and smash all the high caliber NHL forwards to top-6 together.

Aho has played enough center this season that I really wouldn't mind him in the role full time here. I still maintain that our ideal first line would be TT - Aho - Rantanen out of all still possible options, no matter what other centres we might have. Of course, if we do end up getting all three of Lehterä, Koivu and Rantanen, a top-six of Aho - Lehterä - TT and MiG - Koivu - Rantanen wouldn't bee too shabby either, even though I would even then kinda entertain the idea of simply having Lehterä as 3C.

I'd spread the talent more. Savinainen should probably be in top-6 if Aho is a center. He really doesn't mind going to the net and taking some hits. Watching Savinainen in front of the net is already circus entertainment at it's best.

Good call. Apart from Peltola, Claywoman could indeed also work as a Rantanen substitute. He'd be what I'd call a true poor man's version, but might work, yeah.

---

To change the tack a little, another reason why I'm not so high on these simplistic takes of MiG - Aho - TT unit is special teams. You'd have to split up the line on power play regardless, because it definitely wouldn't be ideally roled for that. I mean, you'd pretty much be wasting a world-class playmaker. No matter who joins, we're pretty much now looking at Aho running one PP unit, and Granlund running the other. Which is why it would make sense to have them in separate lines on ES as well, to further build chemistry and minimize the line rotation awkwardness that always follows a special teams situation when you use a mix'n'matched unit.

But eh, this is the kind of minutia I happily leave for Marjamäki to figure out. No matter what solution he takes, it will have its pros and cons, unless we really get a jackpot from overseas.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Aho has played enough center this season that I really wouldn't mind him in the role full time here. I still maintain that our ideal first line would be TT - Aho - Rantanen out of all still possible options, no matter what other centres we might have.

Aho played maybe 8-10 games at C this season with Carolina. He looked fine doing it, but it was a small sample size. He spent most of the season on the LW with TT on the RW. The lines most used:

Aho(LW)-Staal-TT (RW) - vast majority of the season he was here
Aho(LW)-Staal-Lindholm (RW)
Aho(LW)-Lindholm-TT(RW)
Zykov(LW)-Aho-TT(RW) - this was only 8-10 games.

I don't recall TT playing center once this season.

 

[Razamanaz]

Actually, it's been Aho. For the most season, the duo was wingers to either Staal or Lindholm, but when they were in a line without either, it was Seb who would move down the middle. And that's why I'd be wholly comfortable with him as our nominal 1C, especially with TT complementing him.

We can forget about Filppula, he has already declined. But Lehterä has no contract issues, he's got a year left.

Some speculation follows...

If we get Lehterä AND Koivu, building the top-six becomes kinda trivial. It should be:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
X - Koivu - Granlund

Plenty of options for X. I'd personally use Pesonen. He has played with Granny before.
EDIT: I mean in the absence of Rantanen, naturally.


If we get Lehterä but no Koivu, then:

Aho - Lehterä - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Suomela is good enough to be 2C, if absolutely no other options pop up.


If we get Koivu but no Lehterä:

X - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Koivu - Granlund

Rantanen for X would still be the no-brainer. But in case we don't get him, hmm... I'd use Peltola.


No Koivu, no Lehterä:

Peltola - Aho - Teräväinen
Pesonen - Suomela - Granlund

Of course, this is the likely scenario where Marjamäki will be tempted to just put Granny with the Carolina boys, but I am kinda hoping he'd try this instead. Let's keep in mind that in 2016, K.Jalonen put together a line of Aho - Koivu - Granlund, and that didn't work at all. So I have valid reason to merely "hope" TT - Aho - MiG would click, instead of being certain of it. Three playmakers in one unit is never ideal. Two can work just fine, but then you need some kind of power forward or a sniper complementing them.

In the case Rants is a no-show, one outside option would be to make do early with some kind of substitute and wait calmly until Preds - Jets is over. No matter the outcome, it could bring the possible relief - either Eeli or... Big Bad Pate. Even though I don't really dare dream of the latter. He could be pretty gassed by then.

Pesonen?

No thank you mister, sister.

I've seen him all this season and he is nothin'.

A toothless Kiiskinen is a way better player then him.

Believe me Finland.

 

[BusQuets]

Everyone is always whining about coaches preferring veterans but at the same time you guys are putting Pesonen next to Granlund because of one World championships 7 years ago...

 

[FiLe]

Everyone is always whining about coaches preferring veterans but at the same time you guys are putting Pesonen next to Granlund because of one World championships 7 years ago...

They were in the same unit in 2012 as well, so... two.

But not really because of that, but simply because at the moment, we lack a more fitting player type to complement the line. Their history together is more like a bonus.

If we look at the other options, my second choice would be Savinainen. Maybe Peltola. Pyörälä could fit too, but looks like he's not available. (I simply mentioned him here as an example of the type I'm looking for.) For those wanting a youthful presence, I could mention Vesalainen, but I don't think Marjamäki is gutsy enough to just plant him into the team with no look at all and give him a top-six role like that. Would I complain if he did so? Nope, but I'll believe it when I see it.

---

And in the other news, Nutivaara declined, per Yle. Shoulder injury. Bummer.

---

And a promising tidbit regarding Rantanen. Apparently the club is not stopping him from going. It's going to be his own call whether he's coming or not.

 

[BusQuets]

I take it you haven't seen Pesonen play for a while. He shouldn't even make the team let alone putting him in the same line as Granlund.

 

[FiLe]

I take it you haven't seen Pesonen play for a while. He shouldn't even make the team let alone putting him in the same line as Granlund.

The good news is that he'll be on the EHT first. If he sucks there, there should be no need to consider him for the final team.

Unless, of course, Marjamäki has a Kukkonen-like mancrush on him.

 

[jalperi]

I didnt read yet if someone has mentioned here. But there is history between Rajala and Granlund and Granlund with Pesonen so Rajala-Granlund-Pesonen could be a solid line.

 

[Mestaruus]

Aho(LW)-Staal-TT (RW) - vast majority of the season he was here

What a line it would've been with Barkov in the middle...

If we look at the other options, my second choice would be Savinainen. Maybe Peltola. Pyörälä could fit too, but looks like he's not available. (I simply mentioned him here as an example of the type I'm looking for.) For those wanting a youthful presence, I could mention Vesalainen, but I don't think Marjamäki is gutsy enough to just plant him into the team with no look at all and give him a top-six role like that. Would I complain if he did so? Nope, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Sadly Vesalainen's stocks are going down. Points aren't everything but he really needs to produce more points to convince Marjamäki. His season overall has been good though but is he tired or something since he played the U20 too? My feeling is that he is.

I'd personally take a chance on Vesalainen regardless but I got a feeling that Marjamäki won't select him. Maybe he could be a joker card that starts outside of the playing roster. In this case summer practice might be more worth it for Vesalainen so he doesn't end up being like Puljujärvi that one time. Hopefully he scores couple goals tomorrow and helps Kärpät seal the deal for a better chance at direct sport in the active roster.

 

[MoeTheHobo]

Tolvanen hasn't been mentioned in a while. How much reserve forwards do Nashville have and can they afford letting him go to Denmark?

 

[1440]

Is Markus Granlund still injured? Always liked seeing the brothers together.

 

[DownGoesMcDavid]

Is Markus Granlund still injured? Always liked seeing the brothers together.

Broke his ankle. So if he still isnt injured hes definitely in no shape to play at Worlds.